TFaudree_ERAU
Mashin' dem buttons
Been quite a month for me. Went out to Simuflite at DFW for the Lear 55 course, flew about 40 hours in the Lear, a few more in the Cirrus, visited my sister at Roanoke College and spent some quality time with my girlfriend in (a very soggy) Charleston. All pictures were taken with my brand new Sony A100 DSLR camera. I had to break down and buy a Quantaray 70-300mm zoom lens, which goes nicely alongside the 18-70mm kit lens.
First, some shots from DFW. I found a nice spot near the approach end of 18R to spot the afternoon arrivals. I was there for a good two hours before the Dallas Airport SWAT team arrived and asked me to leave. Supposedly some people had "been calling about [me]".
A couple of the Lear. First two are from the DFW GA ramp and the other is a panel shot enroute back to ORF from DFW at FL410.
A couple of shots from Mill Mountain, overlooking the city of Roanoke, VA. At the top of Mill Mountain is a large illuminated star. All of the bulbs were changed to red (the closest they had to maroon) to honor the memories of those lost in the Virginia Tech tragedy.
On the way back from Roanoke, this was the road we took to find some dinner. WTF!??!
One from the hotel room in Charleston. We landed at Charleston Executive about an hour before the skies opened up. It continued to rain for the next 2 1/2 days, ruining our passenger's golf plans.
And last but not least, why I don't like Cirri airplanes. As some of you may know, my company was allowing the Lear captain and I to use the Cirrus to commute from our local airport to Norfolk. We were enroute to ORF at about 5:15 am, well before dawn, flying on autopilot, fat, dumb and happy, when there was a loud bang followed by a pretty serious yaw to the left. We both immediately reached for the knob to switch the Avidyne MFD over to the engine page to see how bad it was. After we confirmed nothing was wrong under the cowl, our next thought was that the baggage door had popped open. I had kicked the auto pilot off almost immediately, and the aircraft was handling fine, so I slowed it up to keep the door attached to the airplane. There was also a loud slapping sound; probably a bag strap hanging out and hitting the fuselage. When we approached the airport, I did a flight control check at a safe altitude at a few different speeds. When I put the flaps full down, the slapping stopped and everything was well. We had to make a right turn to exit the runway toward the ramp, so I made sure we were nearly stopped before I did, hoping to keep the bags inside the airplane. On the ramp, we shut down and hopped out very quickly to see what the problem really was.
I checked the door, and it was latched tight. With that possibility ruled out, we checked all the flight controls, structures, etc. We couldn't find ANYTHING. Finally, the line guy came out from under the right wing and said "hey guys, I found your problem". Here it was:
Supposedly, there was a Service Bulletin put out before our company purchased the airplane for additional screws to be added to the wing faring to prevent airflow from being allowed to enter through the faring gap (the gray tape area, right side of the picture). Obviously, the factory had neglected to address the situation, and we paid for it. On a positive note, now the company is realizing that the Cirrus doesn't fit their mission needs and this was the icing on the cake. We're looking at either a Navajo or a 414, so hopefully I'll be able to say this Cirrus is on the market in the next few weeks.
First, some shots from DFW. I found a nice spot near the approach end of 18R to spot the afternoon arrivals. I was there for a good two hours before the Dallas Airport SWAT team arrived and asked me to leave. Supposedly some people had "been calling about [me]".
A couple of the Lear. First two are from the DFW GA ramp and the other is a panel shot enroute back to ORF from DFW at FL410.
A couple of shots from Mill Mountain, overlooking the city of Roanoke, VA. At the top of Mill Mountain is a large illuminated star. All of the bulbs were changed to red (the closest they had to maroon) to honor the memories of those lost in the Virginia Tech tragedy.
On the way back from Roanoke, this was the road we took to find some dinner. WTF!??!
One from the hotel room in Charleston. We landed at Charleston Executive about an hour before the skies opened up. It continued to rain for the next 2 1/2 days, ruining our passenger's golf plans.
And last but not least, why I don't like Cirri airplanes. As some of you may know, my company was allowing the Lear captain and I to use the Cirrus to commute from our local airport to Norfolk. We were enroute to ORF at about 5:15 am, well before dawn, flying on autopilot, fat, dumb and happy, when there was a loud bang followed by a pretty serious yaw to the left. We both immediately reached for the knob to switch the Avidyne MFD over to the engine page to see how bad it was. After we confirmed nothing was wrong under the cowl, our next thought was that the baggage door had popped open. I had kicked the auto pilot off almost immediately, and the aircraft was handling fine, so I slowed it up to keep the door attached to the airplane. There was also a loud slapping sound; probably a bag strap hanging out and hitting the fuselage. When we approached the airport, I did a flight control check at a safe altitude at a few different speeds. When I put the flaps full down, the slapping stopped and everything was well. We had to make a right turn to exit the runway toward the ramp, so I made sure we were nearly stopped before I did, hoping to keep the bags inside the airplane. On the ramp, we shut down and hopped out very quickly to see what the problem really was.
I checked the door, and it was latched tight. With that possibility ruled out, we checked all the flight controls, structures, etc. We couldn't find ANYTHING. Finally, the line guy came out from under the right wing and said "hey guys, I found your problem". Here it was:
Supposedly, there was a Service Bulletin put out before our company purchased the airplane for additional screws to be added to the wing faring to prevent airflow from being allowed to enter through the faring gap (the gray tape area, right side of the picture). Obviously, the factory had neglected to address the situation, and we paid for it. On a positive note, now the company is realizing that the Cirrus doesn't fit their mission needs and this was the icing on the cake. We're looking at either a Navajo or a 414, so hopefully I'll be able to say this Cirrus is on the market in the next few weeks.
I grew up there before we moved back to San Diego in '90. Of course San Diego is way much better and will always be home!:nana2:
